Itinerary and things to do

So this is the route and events we have staring early morning on Wednesday 4th December 2019.

1. We fly from New York JFK to Los Angeles, there we transfer to an Air Tahiti flight for the 8 hour flight to Papeete in Tahiti.
2. After a 'Flower Welcome'!! at Papeete, we spend a night at the Tahiti Pearl Beach Resort Hotel. It is not a long stay as we are off again early the next morning.
3. We take a three hour flight to the island of Nuku Hiva, the largest of the Marquesas.
4. On arrival at around noon on 5th December, we are transferred to the Nuku Hiva Keikahanui Pearl Lodge hotel which will be our base until the morning of Tuesday 10th December when we fly to the island of Hiva Oa.
5. We stay at the Hiva Oa Hanakee Pearl Lodge until the morning of Sunday 15th December 
6. Then we reverse course and fly back, via Tahiti (with another overnight at the Tahiti Pearl Beach Resort) to Los Angeles and then on to New York. 

What is there to do on the islands?

Here is an article from the New York Times which may help.

Quote:

"FROM the lofty deck of the Hiva Oa Hanakee Pearl Lodge, the only hotel on the remote South Pacific island of Hiva Oa, the view is of lush forest, crashing cobalt sea and, if it is morning, a very misty Mount Temetiu. Below and for miles beyond, nature runs wild: steep cliffs and deep valleys covered with luxuriant tropical vegetation. No reefs surround the island, allowing the sea to pile wildly onto the sandy, rocky shoreline. The only thing missing is ... people. Which is a good thing when you’re contemplating the idea of paradise, which I happened to be doing on a recent morning, my legs dangling in an infinity pool that seemed to spill into Hanakee Bay.

Oddly, the Marquesas were among the first South Pacific islands to be settled, and from their shores departed some of the greatest navigators of all time, those who went on to discover the rest of the so-called Polynesian triangle (New Zealand-Hawaii-Easter Island). Nine hundred miles from Tahiti, the Marquesas have long been known as Te Henua Enata (Land of Men). Giant banyan trees cover steep slopes and hide the oldest tikis in French Polynesia, long-preceding their bigger siblings on Easter Island. Also hidden beneath the thick overgrowth are stone remnants of houses built on high platforms, stone temples and ceremonial grounds where games were played and sacrifices made. Simultaneously lush, remote and breathtaking, it was these same scenes that lured such famous paradise seekers as Paul Gauguin, Herman Melville, Robert Louis Stevenson and Thor Heyerdahl.

Only six of the 10 Marquesas are populated — Nuku Hiva, Ua Pou, Ua Huku, Hiva Oa, Tahuata and Fatu Hiva. Each is a paradise for hikers, bikers, surfers and canyoneers. Narrow dirt trails crisscross the islands, used mostly by hunters on horseback tracking wild pigs. The only sounds in the jungle are birdcalls and the distant roar of waterfalls, deep in the otherwise quiet, eerie lushness. Sand beaches ring the islands, though few roads lead to them.

The small number of Polynesians who do live here populate the river valleys, leaving the interiors mostly to wild horses, cattle and goats. Bird life is rich; the waters teem with lobsters, small fish and sharks. Hotter and drier than Tahiti, their very remoteness has preserved the Marquesas in a day and age when a few islands in French Polynesia risk being over-visited. A couple of the islands can be reached by Air Tahiti several times a week, a few by cargo boat and passing cruise ships every couple of weeks and increasingly by private sailboats. They are hardly off limits, but you have to want to get there.

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Hiking on Nuku Hiva. The interiors of the islands, in the South Pacific, are largely unpopulated. CreditFiona Stewart for The New York Times

Sitting in a wooden deck chair on a recent morning, Gérard Bourgogne, a former concert flutist and part-time computer hacker, and now general manager of the 14-bungalow Hiva-Oa Hanakee Pearl Lodge, thought out loud as we admired the view: “Crossword puzzle champions would find this place perfect. So would adventure caperers. What about advertising it to infertile couples looking for the ultimate romantic hideaway? I can see the advertisement: ‘No better place in the world to truly relax!’ Why not yoga instructors and their classes? They should all come!”

While the lack of people is good for misanthropes like myself, it’s obviously tough on innkeepers.

Thanks to Paul Gauguin’s tempestuous relationship with the island, Hiva Oa may be the best known of the Marquesas. Or maybe now it is Nuka Hiva, thanks to having been host of the fourth season of “Survivor.” It is the biggest of the islands, formed by two volcanoes resting on top of each another, and in 1842 was the first island to be spied from a whaler by Herman Melville, who wrote it was “a country that no description could fit the beauty.”ontinue reading the main story

Hiva Oa was once home to 130,000; today fewer than 1,900 people are scattered through the deep valleys and in a half-dozen small villages scattered around its perimeter. Houses are of painted wood and the landscape is as primitive as it was 1,200 years ago. A long, crescent-shaped beach fronts the biggest town of Atuona, which hasn’t changed much since Gauguin built his House of Pleasure in its center.

On a hot, dry morning I follow the beach past Atuona and walk four miles to Taaoa, where a sizable tohua (temple) has been restored. Eight-foot-tall marae and tiki made from basalt still hide in the lush forest, mostly hidden. At one time 12,000 people lived in this valley, thus the elaborate temple and sacrificial grounds. This day the sounds are of crowing cocks and a road crew’s jackhammer. Human sacrifice has been replaced by worship in a mix of Roman Catholic, Protestant, Mormon and Jehovah’s Witness churches.

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The infinity pool at the Hiva Oa Hanakee Pearl Lodge seems to spill into Hanakee Bay. CreditJon Bowermaster for The New York Times

If one single thing is responsible for French Polynesia’s enduring reputation as paradise, it is the paintings of Gauguin, who moved to Hiva Oa in 1901 after wearing out his welcome on several other Polynesian islands. Filled with grace and mystery, they were mostly of an imagined place, a paradise that did not exist, featuring languorous women smiling into the distance, horses grazing in vanilla groves and baskets overflowing with breadfruit and bananas. A short walk from either the beach or the stone temple into the heart of Atuona delivers me to the doorstep of one of history’s most infamous paradise seekers.

The two-story, A-frame house is constructed from woven bamboo. Carved around its wooden door frame are erotic figures and the words “Be Mysterious” and “Be in Love.” The name of the house is carved above its entrance: Maison de Jouir. House of Pleasure, Sexual Pleasure.

A dozen wide steps lead up to the second level, the one big room where Paul Gauguin (locally known as Koke) lived and painted. A large window looks out over an open well; Gauguin kept a bamboo rod with a fishing line nearby, to raise and lower cups of cold water from the well to add to his absinthe. Gone are the pornographic photos he kept on the walls, and his collection of walking sticks with carved phallic heads. It was here he gave grand fetes, fed by cases of wine and bonbons bought from passing cargo boats.

Gauguin is buried on a hillside above the house, in a small field that looks over the ocean. It is a scene depicted in some of his last paintings. To his headstone is chained a copy of one of his carved statues, called Oviri, or Savage. He was not popular here when he died; in fact he was readying to serve a three-month sentence for libeling a local policeman.

Hiva Oa was Gauguin’s last gasp and things did not go well for him here. Never one to win friends easily, during the years he lived here he openly mocked the Catholic missionaries in a remote French colony governed by the church. He died in his House of Pleasure with a bad heart, failing eyes, morphine-addicted, leprous and syphilitic and soon to become one of the world’s greatest and best-known artists. To his ultimate chagrin, the fame part came mostly posthumously.

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The grave of Paul Gauguin is on the island. CreditJon Bowermaster for The New York Times

Two days later, thanks to the modern convenience of small aircraft, I found myself hiking remote trails on Nuka Hiva. Each morning I set out from the center of the main town of Taiohae, having asked directions from various locals the night before. I found it difficult to find a consensus when it came to simple questions like, “How far is it?” For example, the morning I decided to follow a trail to the far side of the island and a small community at Taipivai, I was told it would take all day to reach the white sand beaches at Controller Bay. It takes about four hours.

Outfitters and the government on Nuka Hiva have committed to cutting a trail system across the island in recent years, in part due to the economic kick in the pants the “Survivor” show brought to the island. The trails exist thanks to decades of wild pig, horse and hunter’s traffic; the idea — fomented by a local tour company called Marquises Rando — is to expand them into more accessible walkways without using much modern technology. Why introduce cement and steel when acacia or coconut tree trunks tied together work just as well as bridges, and volcanic rocks are perfect for bordering footpaths? The idea is to open up the mountains to visitors, creating options from six-hour round-trip walks to two-day treks with camps in between.

The diversity of walks is incredible. One morning I hire a small boat to carry me to a trailhead that leads to the Ahuii waterfall, which plunges 1,100 feet from high in the dense jungle. It’s a two-hour walk that involves a couple of thigh-high river crossings and ends with a swim in the eel-laden pool beneath the falls, and passes a handful of crumbling, thousand-year-old stone platforms along the way. On the opposite side of the island, just up from the beach is the Hikokua tohua where a dozen tikis watch over a grass-covered field once used for games and human sacrifices. Near the beach the biggest modern-day landmark is a sizable beige church and a restaurant big enough to feed the one hundred-plus passengers who arrive by cruise boat every few weeks for a lobster feast.

My last hike on Nuka Hiva is up and over a steep, 600-foot-tall pass from the village of Taipivai to a sand beach at Anaho, past stands of wild vanilla and fields of wild horses. The white beach is studded with smooth black boulders, a rare reef slowing the crashing of waves making it perfect for a swim. A solitary man lives in a fishing shack and waves me over to sample some dried fish and coconut milk. A half-dozen big dogs lie in the shade of palms, several wooden fishing boats and a plastic kayak sit overturned.

As we talk, hiding from the midday sun, I ask for his definition of paradise. Without pause he says simply: “Wherever I am. And on most days, I am right here!”

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The islands’ women wear aromatic bouquets in their hair. CreditJon Bowermaster for The New York Times

MUST SEE

On Nuku Hiva, the hotel can arrange horseback rides and motorboat transfer to various trails dead-ending in spectacular waterfalls. The sandy beach at Anaho requires a short (40-minute) hike, but is worth it. Nearby are the sacrifice and worship sites at Hikokua and Kamuihai. On Hiva Oa, it’s obligatory to visit the Paul Gauguin Museum and the painter’s grave; the French singer Jacques Brel is buried in the same cemetery. An hour’s drive to Puamau winds through jungle hills and by seaside overlooks.

Unquote

Well maybe that will do for a start!!